Thursday, March 30, 2017

I’ve read several stories lately where the author manages to create interesting characters and also string countless pretty sentences together. But they don’t seem to get the notion that nothing in a story moves forward except through conflict.

A simple definition of conflict is: two dogs, one bone. Conflict is key, in every scene. If you write a scene that doesn’t have conflict, trash it, because it doesn’t advance the story, or at least not enough to make the reader wade through it.

Little or no conflict means little or no movement, which means little or no interest. In a word: BORING.

A story is a metaphor for life, and to be alive, as the Buddha once stated, is to be in a perpetual state of conflict. Everyone is lacking something they want, and when they get it they soon want something else. Hence, every character in a story desperately wants something, and the story is what they do in attempting to achieve their desires.

But it is not enough to just throw your protagonist into a pit of snakes as a way to add conflict to a story, or have the love of his life die. The best stories are complex stories, and what I mean by that is, they have conflict happening on three different levels at once. The three levels are:

1. Inner conflict2. Personal conflict3. Extra-personal conflict.

If a story only has conflict of the inner kind it is basically an exercise in stream of consciousness. The basic movement of the story all happens in the character’s head. This is very difficult to pull off, and can get rather tedious after the initial rush wears off.

If a story has all its conflict in the personal category, it is a soap opera or porn, where every character has a relationship with every other character. It’s all about who is sleeping with who. This is a mark of an immature writer.

A story that has only extra-personal conflict is basically an action/adventure or horror story. James Bond is a perfect example. He has no inner conflicts, nor does the viewer mistake 007’s encounters with women as personal. For him they are sport.

It is only when a writer weaves conflict into all these levels that a story becomes truly complex and, in my opinion, interesting.

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

This story represents a dramatic turn in Alan’s
writing. It is a futuristic story of two brothers, one straight and one gay,
who battle a corrupt government and each other. This is a tale of survival, of
devotion, of love, of finding deliverance and atonement.

This novel is a
finalist in the 2014 ForeWord Review Book of the Year Award in the Science
Fiction and has received a fistful of Five-Star reviews. This is what Bob Lind, the reviewer for Echo
Magazine, had to say about it:

I've said in the past that Alan Chin is my favorite author, and
that is still the case with this new book. It is best described as a sci-fi/speculative/political
novel, so unlike any of his previous works I have seen, and he handles the
genre with mastery. The story is action-packed, well-constructed and expertly
told, with a diverse, developed cast of gay and straight characters working
together in situations that risks not only their lives, but perhaps the future
of this country. Bravo … five stars out of five.

Twins
Aaron and Hayden Swann are fighting a corrupt government taken over by ultra
right-wing Fundamentalist Christians in 2055 America. Each brother fights in
his own way, Aaron with bullets, Hayden with words. Then one night their world
is turned upside down when they are caught in a government sting and they must
both flee north into the badlands between San Francisco and Canada, where the
only safe haven is a place called The Plain of Bitter Honey, a refuge where
heads of the Resistance operate. But the brothers don’t know that government
agents are tracking them to the hiding place of the Resistance. Can they find
the inner strength to survive?

Excerpt:

The whine of
hydraulic motors filled the compartment. The back door crept opened and the
front began to rise.

Now came the dicey
part. As trash spilled out of the container, they all had to fight their way to
the top of the heap so they didn’t end up crushed under tons of garbage, and
they had to do it silently—one scream and the armed guards in the cab would be
on them. Thankfully, Gideon jumped to Aaron’s aid to help haul Hayden to the
top. As the container’s angle grew sharp, the trash picked up speed sliding out
the rear.

They rode the debris
out, like surfing a wave.

The grade was steep
and the brothers tumbled down along with the other freedom fighters. When they
came to rest, Aaron still clutched his brother to his chest. Wet, putrid waste
piled over them, enough to give them cover until the truck sped away.

Aaron waited until he
heard the clang of the truck doors lock shut and the whine of the engine fade.
He shook off the trash and pulled Hayden onto his shoulders.

Others scrambled to
find the food and equipment scattered among the debris.

Aaron stumbled across
a field of waste to lay his brother down in the shade of some cottonwood trees.
He dashed back and dug though the rubbish to find his backpack, food and
automatic weapon. He worked fast, knowing other trucks would soon show up to
dump more refuse, and as soon as the trucks stopped for the day, the Caliban
would arrive to scour the heap for anything edible. They had precious little
time to gather the equipment and flee the area.

Within twenty
minutes, they had assembled a pile of backpacks, blankets, tin cookware, canned
food and jugs of water. It only took a few minutes to divvy up the load and
pack. Everybody shouldered his or her load while Aaron hauled Hayden onto his
back again.

Aaron stared at his
pack propped against a tree, realizing that he couldn’t carry both Hayden and
the pack, and everyone else was already weighed down. He flashed on its
contents—family pictures, mother’s jewelry, childhood keepsakes, a few
cherished books Hayden had acquired on the black market, the false passport,
and the three hundred thousand dollars. He picked up his rifle, turned and
lunged away, leaving the pack.

Gideon took the
point, leading them single file toward the foothills below Mt. Tam. As they
left the area, they crossed a well-used path. Beside the trampled grass, Aaron
noticed a patched-together signpost that read: To Vancouver, 800 scenic miles.

Aaron wondered
whether this was the result of well-meant, wishful thinking or whether someone
was making a joke. In any case, the sign stood like a beacon, daring all to
proceed at their own risk.

They moved fast and
stayed under cover as much as possible, but hadn’t gone a mile before Aaron
began to lag behind. The average weight of the backpacks was seventy pounds;
Hayden weighed one-eighty-five. Aaron struggled with every step.

He realized he could
not keep up.

It became a
nightmare. His head bowed and body bent under Hayden’s mass, Aaron lurched over
rocks and small obstacles. The pain of his pinched toes had become sharp. He
was a fool not to have picked better-fitting boots, and he was paying the price
for his stupidity. As he stumbled across the open country, the pain crept from
feet to his shins, to his knees. Aaron was in serious trouble. He would never
make Canada, but he could go on for a while longer. He would stumble on as long
as he could, and just hope someone else would take Hayden when he was done in.

Occasionally he heard
a grunt or a voice, but everyone trudged along silently for the most part.
Having been raised in the city, amidst a constant barrage of noise from traffic
and crowds, this silence was unexpected, and frightening.

Once he thought he
heard footsteps behind him. He stopped and half-turned, his ears and eyes
straining, but he saw nothing. He only heard his own panting and the sound of
his heart pounding.

He hurried on,
mindful of the uneven path. If he broke a leg now, it meant certain death. He
fell further behind until Gideon stopped the others under the cover of trees.

Aaron struggled to
catch up. When he collapsed in the midst of the group, they were deep in
debate.

Weary, Aaron could
smell their fear. He checked to make sure Hayden was breathing okay, and
crawled to his feet.

“Nobody gets left behind,” Gideon growled.
“Now that we’re away from the dump, we need to move carefully and with
intelligence, not fast and stupid.”

Cooper shook his head
and Maggie spoke for the first time, “Coop’s right. I’m sorry about what
happened to Hayden, but right now he’s an anchor. I’m not risking my life to
save him.” She glared at Aaron.

If it were anyone but
Hayden, he’d be the one insisting they leave him behind.

“All right,” Aaron
said between gasps for breath. “I won’t beg you to stay with Hayden and me.
Anybody who thinks I’m putting them at risk can leave us behind, and best of
luck to you.” On our own, he thought, we don’t have a prayer.

“Listen up,” Gideon
said, peering at Aaron. “I’m sticking with Aaron. If you want to live, you’d
better damn well stick with us.”

Maggie took two steps
toward Gideon. He didn’t flinch as she said, “You have a map of how to get to
The Plain of Bitter Honey. Make me a copy.”

How she knew that
information, Aaron had no idea, but he was not surprised. She was the smart
one, and did her research.

“Too dangerous. If
the Caliban gets their hands on that map, Bitter Honey would be wiped out. I
won’t take that chance.”

The Armenian raised
his sidearm level with Gideon’s head and clicked off the safety.

“Give her the map,”
the Armenian hissed, “or I’ll take it off your dead body.”

“One shot and you’ll
draw everyone within five miles down on us.”

The Armenian took a
step toward Gideon, bringing the muzzle to within an inch of Gideon’s head.

Everybody froze.
Gideon reached for his inside coat pocket.

“Slowly,” the
Armenian snarled.

Gideon produced a map
and held it out. “If you even suspect you’re being followed, eat it. You cannot
let the Caliban get hold if it.”

Maggie snatched it
from his fingers. Aaron stepped closer,
until he could see the drawing himself. It was indeed a map of the Pacific
Northwest, done in pencil outlining the coastline with little triangles showing
the mountain ranges. A compass sat in the top right-hand corner. At the top was
a line and above it a word: Canada. But in the middle, within the triangles
along the coastline near the California/Oregon border, was a small black dot
with the words ‘Plain of BH’ under it.

She folded it back up
and stuffed it inside her shirt.

Aaron couldn’t
believe she was making such a stupid blunder. Leaving Gideon to go it on her
own was madness. It revealed how scared she and the others were. It’s because we let them think they were
going south, he thought. We should have let them know the minute we agreed to
evacuate everyone who could have been identified. We sprung this run for Canada
on them at the last moment,but they
needed time to get used to the idea.
It was too quick.

“Whoever is coming
with me,” she said, “saddle up. I want to be on the other side of Mount Tam by
sundown.”

With the Armenian
continuing to hold his gun on Gideon, everyone except Liam and the Mexican girl
shouldered a pack. Moments later, they trotted away at a fast clip, traveling
due north.

“Thanks for sticking
with us,” Aaron said, nodding in Liam’s direction as well, “but what the hell
can we do without a map?”

“I don’t need it,”
Gideon spat. “I’ve been there enough times. I made that stinking map to give to
you in case something happens to me. Let’s move out. We’ll skirt around the
west side of Tam. We hike single file. Walk in my footprints. No talking; we
communicate with hand signals. We take it slow and we zigzag so it’s more
difficult for them to trail us.”

“Are the Caliban as
fearsome as people claim?” Liam asked. “I mean, I always thought that the
rumors were government propaganda to keep us afraid.”

Monday, March 27, 2017

A musical afternoon listening to the Desert Winds Freedom Band performing music from the world of dance...Opera, Broadway, Ballet and Jazz with guest vocalists at the Jewish Community Center Bochner Auditorium.

Saturday, March 25, 2017

I believe that all humans seek happiness, and I’ve come to think that attaining happiness is our purpose in life. Whether an individual is religious or not (and it makes no difference which religion one follows) we all strive to make our lives better, which means some sort of movement towards attaining what we imagine to be happiness.

Yet, achieving true happiness in today’s society has become, more and more, ill defined, elusive, and ungraspable. For many, those moments of occasional joy that life brings are fleeting, and bouts of happiness feels like something that comes out of the blue, and disappears just as quickly.

I believe this because this is how I created a life full of happiness for myself, after decades of striving to achieve it. For me that first meant meeting several basic needs: a quiet home environment where I could write, a loving partner, caring friends, basic food and material needs. But I needed more to be truly happy. And that more, I eventually learned, was a willingness to reach out to others, to create a feeling of affinity and goodwill, even in the briefest of encounter.

The Dalai Lama once said, “My religion is kindness.” That simple statement had a profound effect on me. It seemed more compassionate than the old “Do Unto Others” I’d always tried to follow. After much thought, I made that my religion as well. Every hour of the day, I strive to show kindness to all living creatures.

It sounds simple, yet it was extremely difficult for me. And I’m still striving to make it a way of living. What is hard is crushing my ego so that I put others needs before mine, even people who rub me the wrong way. But with inner discipline, it can be realized.

I no longer compete with my fellow men and women. I put their needs above my own. Even when people are rude or insulting, I try to absorb those negative feeling and respond with kindness. When I hear political discussions where people are insulting one politician or another, I refuse to participate. Not that I don’t have my opinions on politics, I simply refuse to be rude to anybody.

And what I’ve found over the last few years, is this attitude of kindness is the key ingredient for making my life happy. Call it karma. Call it anything you want. Being kind to others makes me feel good. It brings happiness to my fellow humans, and it brings a double measure of happiness back to me.

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Every good story has a single controlling idea. All coherent tales express this idea veiled inside an emotional structure we call plot. Once a writer discovers that idea, s/he should respect it. S/he should, in my opinion, never indulge in the idea that their work is merely entertainment. A story should convey meaning.

After all, what is entertainment? It’s the ritual of reading or watching a movie, investing tremendous concentration into what one hopes will be a satisfying, meaningful emotional experience. Anything else is just porn.

Plato once urged the city fathers of Athens to exile all poets and storytellers. He considered them a threat to society because writers conceal their ideas inside the seductive emotions of art, rather than present them in the rational manner of philosophers. Plato insisted that storytellers were dangerous people. He was right.

The same is true today. Every effective story sends a charged idea to our brains. Yet the idea is often not at all obvious. In fact, many writers, myself included, end up writing a great deal of a story before it dawns on them what that controlling idea is.

The power of this idea comes not only from the idea, but from the emotional charge that the story generates around the idea. Consider the movie Death Wish, whose controlling idea is that justice triumphs when people take the law into their own hands and kill the people who need killing. Audiences cheered as Charles Bronson stalked Manhattan, murdering thugs. Yet the controlling idea is totally vile.

So does a writer have a social responsibility to cure social ills or renew faith in humanity? I believe that the only responsibility the writer has is to tell the truth as they see it. So when you finish a story. Ask yourself, what is the main idea expressed within the climax, and then ask if that idea is true.

Straight, married Petty Officer Second
Class Skyler Thompson battles homophobia from his navy buddies, the military,
and his wife when he takes a job creating flower arrangements at a gay-owned
florist. But rather than yield to pressure and quit, he refuses to give up the
joy of creating beautiful arrangements, battling homophobia for artistic
expression. His dream is to leave the navy and open his own florist shop.

Ezra Dumphy—his shipmates call him
Dumpy because of his obesity—is a gay sailor who likes to dress in drag. He is
shunned by his shipmates, tragically lonely, and uses drugs to cope with his
solitude. What he wants more than anything is someone to share his life with.

Can these two men, opposites in every
way, help each other achieve their dreams?

My View:

“Life, friendship, love, was a
crapshoot.”

After just two chapters into this book,
I had bought into this story, to Ezra and Skylar, to their lives, to this
author’s writing.

On the surface of things, it may appear
like these are trope-worn characters with trope-worn backgrounds, but this is
not the case. Chin has given these people lives through their struggles and the
crutches with which they try to deal with those struggles. He’s given to them
talents and the joy they feel when they get lost in them. The level of
emotional honesty is unavoidable, it’s so real.

Ezra and Skylar share a connection,
though through different media. The result is a door that opens practically on
its own.

To him, art was somehow sacred, the way
you gaze up at a night sky and wonder if you’re standing on an electron that
revolves around a proton in a series of infinite universes, and suddenly your
mind expands and you experience your reality in a new and more significant
light.

Anyone who has ever gotten lost while
looking at a photograph or watching a playing musician or reading a passage in
a poem, or anything of the like, will understand that feeling. There’s no
turning back from it, either.

Desperation.

Fleeting joy.

Deep pain.

Strength.

Loneliness.

Wispy hope.

Sadness.

Unexpected chances.

This writer has a healthy comfort level
with language and knows how to use it. It’s such an interesting juxtaposition,
his use of what I can only call celebratory prose in writing about difficult
things taking place in complicated, uneasy lives. The styles aren’t all similar
but I got the same feeling from his writing as I do when reading Harper Fox or
Edmond Manning. The words the words the words.

There are a few cases of what feels
like overindulgence in that language, but when it’s this enjoyable, I let it go
like a two-day old bagel.

At some point during all of this, I
realized I wouldn’t be able to ever forget these characters. Beautiful, sweet,
carrying their burdens, frightened, hopeful and working to survive. Again, it’s
the writing. It brings inspiration and darkness to life.

“Flowers are more delicate, more
ethereal than the plants they emerge from, and they have scent, which is
amorphous. They are the bridge between the physical and the formless, body and
spirit. Flowers are a metamorphosis of the plant in the same way spiritual
awakening is to a human.”

Hollister, one of the supporting
characters and co-owner of the flower shop with his partner Miguel, says this
to Skylar as they work on creating some arrangements for an event. This is one
of many, many turns in this story for multiple characters. I have to say, as
well, that in this kind of story, I almost don’t like to use the term “supporting”,
as if they aren’t important all on their own. Believe me, every character in
this book is meant to be there.

Unpredictable characters making
unpredictable choices. I like that I didn’t always agree with those choices or
that they didn’t always feel right for the characters. Whenever that happened,
it forced me to reexamine my understanding of them. How great is that? Highly
involved reading is the name of the game here. Love it.

There are all types of relationships
explored in this story: friendship, co-workers, married couples, child/parent,
long-time companions, lovers, and all of them feel very real. Real means
emotional, relatable, they made me think, stayed with me, and I couldn’t wait
to get back to reading about them each day.

“Honey, did you ever have a kite pull
you right off the ground when you were a kid? If so, then you know the thrill I
get when I work with flowers.”

There’s a nostalgic feel to this book.
I’m not even sure how I can “prove” that, except that it does. Maybe it’s the overall
style of the storytelling Chin has. I think that’s what it is. I want more.

This is not an easy read given the wide
array of tangled, difficult subjects examined and experiences revealed. Despite
all of that, I felt peaceful when I was finished. Looking back at everything
that happened, everything these characters put themselves through, I never
would have predicted peace being my final reaction. Just like the story itself,
it was unpredictable.

This is a novel that, frankly, defies
categorization. It left me utterly satisfied. It’s very personal. And that last
scene? I still can’t find the words to adequately describe how it made me feel,
all of these days later. I do know that I want more of Ezra’s story.

I could not recommend this book more even
if ‘more’ meant… more. Read it.

Monday, March 20, 2017

A week or so ago, I submitted my latest manuscript to Bold
Strokes Books. I’ve suspected for some time that they would reject it, not
because the manuscript is not a quality, well-written story, but because the
three books I’ve published with BSB have poor sales records.

And in fact, that’s just what happened. I received an email from
BSB rejecting my manuscript based on prior sales data. They will continue to
support/sell the three books I’ve published with them—Buddha’s Bad Boys, First
Exposure, and The Plane of Bitter Honey—but they will not published any more of
my stories. And they released me from their First-Right-of-Refusal clause in
the contracts for all my future works. I’m now free to peddle my stories
anywhere.

I’m not altogether sure why my books didn’t sell at BSB. I know
it’s partly because I’ve become a lazy on the marketing front. But I also feel
it’s partly that BSB focuses on paperback sales, and less on ebooks. I sold five
to six times as many copies per book at Dreamspinner Press, and most of those
numbers were ebook sales. Also, I had built up a following at Dreamspinner. BSB
is predominately a lesbian publisher, and their audience, I fear, is mostly
ladies who like to read about ladies. My books are not their cup of tea.

Yesterday, I sent a query letter to Dreamspinner Press, and I’m
hoping they accept this manuscript because it is a sequel to a book they have
already published—Butterfly’s Child. Also, I’ve always enjoyed working with the
folks at DSP. They are competent and supportive. The only reason I switched to
BSB from DSP was I was branching away from romance, and at the time, DSP only
published romance.

I’m feeling good about this move. Like I said above, I was
expecting this. I’m just hopeful Dreamspinner Press will give me a chance.

Books By Alan Chin

About Alan Chin

I write novels, short stories and screenplays.
I am the author of eight published novels and three unpublished screenplays. You can read about all my pubished works at http://alanchinauthor.com
I live and write half of each year at my home in Southern California, and spend the other half of each year traveling the globe with my husband, Herman Chin.